Considering Size

As we "twelves" began discussions about what to do after we finished the ColorPlay series, several of us expressed a desire to break away from the 12x12" size requirement. Others were concerned about making too big a commitment to too many more quilts -- or more square inches.

As you know, eventually we decided on creating five quilts that would measure 20x12" during the year 2012. They will each have a theme that will be chosen by one of the twelves. Gerrie chose the theme we are working on now, Metamorphosis. My name was drawn out of the hat to choose the next theme.

At first I was a bit daunted by this new size. In my mind, it seemed much bigger. Last week I cut two 20x12" templates so I could warm up to the size.

Here they are pinned to my design wall -- both a positive and a negative.

The gray house on the purple background is an in-progress piece. It's unrelated to any 12x12 work, but maybe it provides a bit of scale in addition to the iron on the ironing board at the right.

So now 20x12" doesn't seem as big as I thought it would! In fact, now I'm feeling that it's too small for some of the ideas I've been considering.

Our 2012 Series is larger in the sense of the square inches we'll be creating during the year.

In our ColorPlay and Theme series we did six 12x12" quilts in one year. So, that's 144 square inches per quilt, times six quilts for a total of 864 square inches.

In our 2012 series we'll do five 20x12 quilts in one year. That's 240 square inches per quilt, times five quilts for a total of 1200 square inches.

Yikes, when I think in terms of the entire year and the total square inches, it's feeling big and a bit overwhelming again.

I suppose it's a bit funny and strange to get so hung up on size. I'm sure that as I begin to create my pieces, they will adequately fill the space. It's possible that I'll discover new ways of composing my designs to fit this somewhat unusual size -- and that will be exciting and unexpected. I should focus more on the process rather than some inaccurate vision about the size requirements.